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“That all happened much sooner than I anticipated,” Anastasios murmured as he and Leon sat down in one of Leon’s private sitting rooms, the enchantments in the walls still robust despite the damage that Leon’s villa took during Keeper’s assault.  “Leon, I humbly apologize, the Keeper never should’ve gotten this far.”

Leon, his mind still reeling from his villa barely managing to remain intact despite suffering an attack by a tenth-tier mage with two ninth-tier mages providing back-up, sighed and slouched into his chair.  “‘Keeper’, huh?  Was that the Emperor of the east?  The leader of the Sentinels?”

“Yes,” Anastasios confirmed.  “Not exactly an Emperor, but close enough, I suppose.  He’s always been dedicated, but extreme.  I believe you already know that you’ve been watched for years, since even before you came south?”  Leon nodded.  Anastasios grimaced slightly as he continued, “Keeper has been against the idea of an alliance with you right from the start.  He’s always advocated killing you as soon as possible, to end the threat you might pose to the Imperial order with as little bloodshed as we can manage.  He’s not interested in what you can offer to us, he doesn’t care if you are the complete opposite of your ancestors, he doesn’t believe in redemption.  In his eyes, the crimes your ancestors committed here have damned your entire bloodline, and the worst possible thing that could happen—according to him, anyway—would be you linking up with the Sky Devils and making another go of conquering Aeterna.

“Ever since you came south, I and the Grand Druid have been running interference, so to speak.  We’ve managed to keep him from doing anything more than advocating for your death, but it seems you speaking with a few Sky Devils spooked him into action.”

Leon absorbed all of this with a rapidly-deepening frown.  “How did he get this far into the Ilian Empire?” he asked.  “I get that he’s a tenth-tier mage and, as the leader of his people, likely has access to magic and powers that few, if any, can match on this plane… but I figured that entering your Empire without notice would’ve been beyond even his capabilities…”

Anastasios sighed again and responded, “Our border defenses are strong, but nothing’s impregnable.  Besides, we’re not at war with the Sentinels, so we’re not exactly on the lookout for anything from the east.  We’re not going to war with them, but I think we’re going to be giving our current defense strategy quite the makeover in the next few weeks…”

Leon nodded.

“Leon, again, I have to apologize.  Even with all of this happening, I thought that my presence in the city would’ve prevented something like this from happening.  I can only count us both lucky that you’re powerful and that the wards on your home are strong.”

Leon waved his hand dismissively.  “You don’t control the Keeper, don’t apologize for his actions.  Just help me keep something like this from happening again, and we can call ourselves even.”

“Of course.”

Leon and Anastasios both smiled, but their expressions weren’t as warm as their words might’ve implied.  ‘Can’t have me dying before squeezing all you can from me, can you?’ Leon cynically thought, and he imagined Anastasios was thinking something similar.

“The Grand Druid will be coming soon,” Anastasios said, surprising Leon a bit.

“So soon?  And she’s coming here?  To Occulara?”

“Yes.  If you’re open to cooperation, then she wants in, and I would never try to monopolize your talents and generosity…”

‘Of course you wouldn’t…’

“Together, I believe that we’ll be able to keep Keeper off your back.”

“How will that work?” Leon asked.  “I can’t imagine either of you will be happy to stay here in Occulara for long, not when your Empires might need you.  You’ll have to leave soon enough, and what will happen then?  Should I expect another attack from Keeper?”

Left unsaid were Leon’s plans for rapidly gaining power.  With the Hesperidic Apples, he figured that he might be to close the gap between himself and the Keeper within a short enough time to startle the rest of the plane, but even if it only took another decade, that could still be far too much time.  At any point during those years, the Keeper could return and kill him properly this time, and the only things between him and the Keeper right now were Anastasios and the Grand Druid.  He was under no illusions that they would remain in the city for as long as was needed to keep him alive—and that was even assuming they would allow him to reach the tenth-tier, anyway.

If he were to grow that strong, then he could potentially tell them to suck it the next time they came by for help with some old things they had of his Clan, and there wouldn’t be much they could do about it.  As ‘cooperative’ as he might be, he didn’t for a moment think that they didn’t consider him a threat.

‘I could always marry Cassandra,’ Leon thought as he fought to keep the scowl of disgust off his face at the prospect.  ‘That would certainly guarantee the Grand Druid remaining on my side.  Ugh, but fuck that.  Fuck that.’  He liked Cassandra, but not that much, and he wasn’t about to whore himself out for protection, no matter how much it might make his life safer and easier.

“As much as I’d like to stay here and chat for a bit,” Anastasios said as he rose from his seat, “this confrontation is going to have some political consequences.  I’ll keep an eye on your home, but I need to head back to the city and deal with this.”

Leon suppressed a scowl, but understood.  Two Emperor-level figures having a confrontation like that in his villa sounded like the kind of political headache that would give him a migraine, but after a moment of thought, he realized that it was something he was going to have to get used to.  There would likely be more confrontations of that nature going on in his life, if he were to achieve his goals.

Leon rose to see the Lord Protector out, both of them returning to the courtyard where Anastasios lifted up into the sky and flew back into the city—though the four ninth-tier mages who’d accompanied him stayed behind.

After seeing the Lord Protector off, Leon sighed and, before he started inspecting the damage, checked back in with everyone.  Despite a few of his field workers having fallen into the massive cracks that the Keeper had opened in his field, everyone was relatively fine.  Scrapes, bruises, a couple of broken bones, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a healing spell or potion, both of which Leon was more than happy to hand out.  Leon could only count himself lucky that the Keeper was focused entirely on him during the attack.

But, for as undamaged as his people were from that confrontation, his estate was another story.  The fields where Elise and Helen grew medicinal herbs was torn asunder, the foundations of his villa were cracked and shattered in a thousand places, his wards were ripped apart, and a few empty rooms had their ceilings collapse.  Leon conservatively estimated the damages as at least ten million silvers, and likely double or even triple that amount.  It was going to take either a lot of workers, or the attention of a powerful earth mage to fix all of this damage, and neither of those things came cheaply.

Fortunately, he was a Chief in Heaven’s Eye, and he could afford to fix all of it.  So, he put the damage to his home out of his mind, content in the knowledge that no one had been irreparably hurt, and went to spend some time with Elise.  This was the second time their home had been attacked by his enemies in so overt a manner.  When Leon found her, she was practically hysterical, barely able to get a coherent word out as she latched onto him and cried out all of her terror into his shirt.  During this time, Marcus saw his sister out, and Leon found himself mildly amused at the prospect of just what she might report back to the Bull Kingdom.

After a while, Maia and Valeria joined Leon and Elise, and they were all able to go over just what had happened, and what was going to happen shortly.  With her emotions vented and with a purpose in mind, Elise sprang up and got to work.  If the Lord Protector was going to continue to stay here, then they had to clean up—doubly so if the Grand Druid was going to be putting in an appearance.

So, Leon set aside any thoughts of work for the next few days.  He needed to get the wards on the villa back up and running.  It had been years since he’d put them up, and in that time, his skill and experience in enchanting had grown; he already had ideas about stronger and more secure enchantments he could put on the villa…

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“It’s honestly terrifying…” Alix muttered.

“It is what it is,” Gaius whispered back.  “If we’re going to be following Leon, then I think you have to prepare yourself to rub shoulders with the strong.”

“But still… one tenth-tier mage and his folks who spend most days in the city is one thing.  Having two around just makes my knees shake!”

Leon quietly sighed as he stood on his front steps, Elise, Maia, and Valeria at his side, the rest of his retinue just behind him.  Out in his front courtyard was the Lord Protector, his four ninth-tier guards, and several others in his entourage who weren’t staying in Leon’s villa, all decked out and array in formal clothes and formation.

Notable by their absence were any local magistrates or Heaven’s Eye officials.  They were waiting back at the docks for the Grand Druid’s ship, but the Grand Druid herself wasn’t going to stay long in the city before coming straight to Leon’s villa.  Consequently, Anastasios had floated the idea to Leon of waiting for her at his home instead of at the docks.  Leon, not wanting to head down to the docks and wanting to send a subtle message by having the Grand Druid come to his villa instead of meeting her partway, agreed.

Before he responded to Alix and Gaius, he glanced back at his villa.  Only three days had passed since the Keeper’s attack, but with Elise’s management, Leon’s wealth, and Anastasios’ embarrassment, the three of them had managed to completely fix the villa’s structure in less than a day.  Fixing up the fields didn’t take more than a couple of hours on the second day, and Leon took the opportunity to practice a bit of his earth magic.

However, what had taken up just about the rest of Leon’s waking hours since getting his home physically fixed was reimplementing his defense wards.  His light shield had performed quite well, considering what it had gone up against, but he upgraded it with more power.  The reinforcement enchantments, however, had done little to stop the Keeper from destroying so much of his villa.

He supposed that the fact that there was so much of his villa left after the attack was proof that his wards were effective, but a failure was still a failure, and he knew he could do better.  Still, he needed more time to get all of those wards back into place, and were the Grand Druid not due to arrive in a matter of minutes, he would still be working on them.

“Just avoid them as much as you can,” Leon whispered back to Alix.  “If it matters that much, then double down on your training and close the gap between you.  Interacting with a tenth-tier mage is one thing when you’re only fifth-tier, it’s quite another when you’re much stronger.”

“I’m not you!” Alix protested.  “I don’t have super fancy storm blood that these people are interested in!”

Leon just smiled.  “All the more reason to train.  Once I get these damn wards set back up, I’ll be right there with you.  I may have super fancy storm blood, but it’s proven quite lacking in recent days, hasn’t it?”

Alix nervously chuckled, but whatever was to be her response died in her throat as the Grand Druid’s entourage finally arrived.

It wasn’t that large, being much smaller than Anastasios’.  Her entire party was spread out over about a dozen steel carriages, and totaled less than a hundred.  However, the average power of each of those hundred startled Leon as he noted four more ninth-tier mages, a dozen of the eighth-tier, and more than thirty of the seventh-tier.  The sheer amount of power that the Grand Druid brought with her left him completely speechless as they climbed out of the carriages and revealed themselves.

The Grand Druid was the last one to show her face, emerging from the largest and most ornate carriage and looking both worried and furious.  For a moment, Leon expected Cassandra to pop out of the carriage too, and was both relieved and disappointed when the Princess remained absent.

Without any fanfare, the Grand Druid, completely silently, wasted no time in walking towards Leon.

“Grand Druid!” Anastasios called out as she approached.  “Lovely to see you aga—”

The Grand Druid barely even spared him a look as she brushed past Anastasios’ assembled party in favor of approaching Leon.  To his credit, Anastasios didn’t look at all put out by her apparent snub.

“Leon!” the Grand Druid exclaimed, sounding for all the world like nothing more than a concerned, doting grandmother.  “Are you all right?  I heard what happened and came here as soon as I could!”  Utterly ignoring Leon’s rather blatant, if silent, indications not to, the Grand Druid rushed forward and pulled him into a deep, familial hug.

“You were already on the way,” Anastasios retorted with some humor as he followed the Grand Druid over.  “It’s not like you were in Evergold and dropped everything to come here after the Keeper overstepped.”

“Oh hush, you!” the Grand Druid responded, still holding Leon’s head against her shoulder.  “I was deeply concerned for my future grandson-in-law!”

“When was that decided?” Anastasios wondered.

“It wasn’t!” Leon declared as he finally managed to extricate himself from the Grand Druid’s grasp.  “It wasn’t!” he said again with a little more poise and dignity.  Then, he plastered a smile across his face, doing his best to make it seem genuine, and said, “Grand Druid, welcome to my home.  I would be honored to host you for as long as you are to remain in the city, if you find other accommodations unsuitable.”

Leon desperately hoped she did have other accommodations, but he knew that that was unlikely.  Indeed, he was proven right when her face lit up like a Lightning Lance and she exclaimed, “I would love to stay here!  While I fully endorse you marrying my precious granddaughter, I do have to do all my due diligence, after all!”

“Uh huh,” Leon replied as he moved to complete the greetings with the rest of his family and retinue.  Fortunately, that didn’t take too long, and ten minutes later, he was taking seat in a private sitting room, just him, Anastasios, and the Grand Druid.

“All right,” Leon said, “I’ll give you the same deal I gave the Lord Protector: you get a room for yourself, and I’ll put up with four of your entourage.  Everyone else has to find somewhere else to sleep.”

“Fair enough,” the Grand Druid replied, looking about as interested in such matters as she was in the dust beneath her fingernails.  “Leon, I have to congratulate you on your promotion.  Quite an accomplishment for someone of your age.”

“Thank you,” Leon said, unfazed by her change in topic.  “Shall we get down to business?  I’ve had some time to think, and I know what you’re here for and what you want, so let’s just dispense with the garbage in the way and get working, yeah?  I have a lot on my plate right now…”

“Just going right for the kill, huh?” Anastasios quipped.  “Can’t even give us some warning, first?”

“I have less patience than time, and I have very little time.”

“So be it.  Now, the Keeper…”

“Right,” the Grand Druid whispered with a hint of contempt in her voice.  “He seems to have forgotten the old accords.”

“What?” Leon asked.

“Informal agreements between those of us at the top of our respective mountains,” Anastasios explained.  “All the plane would suffer if those of our power truly clashed.  So, while we have no treaties in writing—we leave that sort of thing to our Emperors, proper—we do our best to adhere to a couple rules.”

“First,” the Grand Druid continued as Anastasios paused, “is that we don’t solve our problems with violence.  We meet up to discuss topics of interest, and any disagreements we have are to be solved during these conferences.  If we’re unable to come to some conclusion to any disagreement, then an unrelated tenth-tier mage is to act as mediator—and, if need be, an arbitrator.”

“Second,” Anastasios jumped back in, “is that we’d respect territorial boundaries.  Conflicts inevitably happen when two of us are in any one place for too long—unaligned motives and goals, and all that—so we stay out of each other’s hair as much as is possible.  When we do meet up for our conferences, it’s never in person.  We simply communicate as best we can in other ways.”

Leon nodded, expecting more rules.  When none were forthcoming, he gave both of them a confused look.  “Is that it?  Just two informal agreements?  Just staying out of each other’s way, is it?  And if that’s the case, why are you two so eager to be around each other?  Wouldn’t that cause problems with the Keeper and the Sunlit Emperor?  If I were either of them, I might think that you two were putting together a political bloc that could upset the balance of power…”

“Oh, Sunlit is too absorbed in his own proclivities to think of that,” the Grand Druid said with far less disguised contempt than when she spoke of the Keeper.

“And old Keeper is suspicious of everyone,” Anastasios added, “so his reaction to us is the same no matter what we do.”

“But we’ll keep him in line,” the Grand Druid stated, a dangerous look in her gleaming red eyes.  “Someone making moves against you before my Cassandra has properly asserted her territory can not be taken lightly!”

Leon grimaced.  “I would really rather you stop referring to me like that.  I’m not Cassandra’s property.”

“Of course you aren’t, dear!” the Grand Druid replied.  “Not yet, anyway!”

“Not ever, more like.”

“Of course!” the Grand Druid repeated.  “But… if you don’t want Cassandra, then what is it you do want?  I can be accommodating, if you’re willing to be the same…  After all, I’ve heard that you and Ana over here have your own arrangements…”

Leon’s eyebrows rose at her shortening of Anastasios’ name, but he let it go by without comment; Anastasios himself seemed taken aback and a little embarrassed that she’d said it.  But his response didn’t wait a moment longer.

“I want your crown,” Leon declared, and he reveled in her look of sudden shock, momentary though it was.

When he’d first met the Grand Druid, she’d been wearing a beautiful crown that Nestor had identified as belonging to his sister, the only daughter of Jason Keraunos.  When Leon wondered just what the Grand Druid might be able to pay for his services with whatever legacies she’d taken from his Clan that she might want him to help her unlock, aside from security guarantees, the crown was an easy choice.  He didn’t even care that much if the thing had any practical value, though if it did, then all the better.

“So…” the Grand Druid whispered, “you recognized it as something of value, then?”

“It’s something I want,” Leon said, not wanting to offer up any information that she might not have.  “That’s my price.  Lord Protector Anastasios has given me his support and a guarantee of security in exchange for helping him with some of my Clan’s old stuff lying around Ilion or wherever it’s been squirrelled away.”

“Is my security guarantee not worth as much?” the Grand Druid asked.

Leon candidly replied, “Given that I’m living within the Ilian Empire and have no plans to change that, yes, his security guarantee is more valuable than any others on offer.  Now, I also plan to ask for yours, but I believe that with your duties keeping you thousands of miles away from Occulara, that anything you might want my help with will cost a little extra.  And that little extra is that crown.

“So, weigh keeping that crown with whatever you might gain from me.  Is it wor—”

Interrupting Leon, the Grand Druid simply said, “Done.”  Without another word, she conjure the golden crown from her soul realm and casually spun it on her finger.

[Nestor?] Leon whispered into his soul realm, a little nonplussed at her reaction, but taking it as much in stride as he could.

[It’s real…] the dead man replied.

“Very well,” Leon replied as he leaned forward and held out his hand.

The Grand Druid betrayed her thoughts a bit when she hesitated for a fraction of a second, but in the end, put the crown in Leon’s hand, who immediately pulled it into his soul realm.

“And it’s done,” Leon said with a smile on his face.  He had two tenth-tier mages in his corner—at least, for now.  He had some obligations to them, of course, but at the very least, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about another attack on his villa anytime soon.

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